Craft

Yes, I finally finished The Book Without An Ending (actual working title: Beneath The Water) and, let me tell you, it was a massive relief.

As I write without a plan, there are always several ‘oh, bugger, what on earth is going to happen next?’ moments, but once I get half-way or two-thirds in, I usually have a clear idea of where it’s heading. The details of this can change, but there is a general, comforting gist. Not this time.

After typing ‘The End’ (hooray!), I took the week off from writing, but kept having those annoying post-finishing thoughts about things I could have added/made better. Urgh.

Still. It’s away on submission, so there is nothing more I can do right now – except obsessively check my email for news, of course.

So, I have been catching up on email and admin/accounts and, more importantly, Reading For Fun. Such a joy after being on deadline.

I loved Anne Marie Casey’s smart and engaging The Real Liddy James, and am halfway through Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link. I haven’t read any of Kelly Link’s stories before and they are extraordinary. Next, I’m going to dive into Maggie O’Farrell’s This Must Be The Place which I wanted to read the moment it came out. I am a huge fan, but I forced myself to wait so that I could give it my full attention.

In other news, my eldest turns sixteen next week. Sixteen! I am always wobbly and emotional before my children’s birthdays, but this does feel quite significant. She is talking about university and the next stage of her life and it is really beginning to hit me that she will, one day soon, leave home. Gah.

To celebrate the Strange And Terrible Linear Passage Of Time (or, ‘birthday’, if you prefer), we had a family trip to Comic Con in Glasgow. My daughter and I did our first ever cosplay as a mother-and-daughter demon hunting team and we met the fantastically talented (and lovely) Hillywood sisters.

We also saw Jenny Colgan speaking on a panel about writing and publishing Science Fiction, stocked up on cuddly Totoro toys (you can never have too many), and generally had a blast.

If you have never been to a con and like the idea of being surrounded by lots of folk being unabashedly enthusiastic about the stories/fictional worlds they love, I definitely recommend it. And as a writer it was an inspiring and energising reminder of the power of story.

Fay has a true gift for making things. Whether it is cooking beautiful food, tiling a bathroom or stitching a skirt, she achieves excellence in anything I have seen her try.

Imagine how excited I was when she turned her skills to making a shawlette/scarf inspired by In The Light of What We See!

As Fay knows I am a novice crocheter (and she wanted simple pattern that could be done while listening to an audiobook or watching television), the pattern is suitable for beginners. It has a geometric edge pattern, and I can absolutely picture Mina wearing it.

Plus, she found beautiful hand-dyed yarn (by Ripples Crafts in Scotland) in colours which match the book cover perfectly.

Yes, she’s a genius.

To celebrate my very first ‘bespoke book-inspired pattern’, I’m giving away the audiobook of In The Light of What We See, the exclusive pattern, and a skein of hand-dyed yarn (enough to make the shawlette). Just head to Twitter and RT/follow to enter!

You need to follow both my account and Fay’s – @ma_dashper and @SarahRPainter

Good luck!

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Terms and conditions:

To enter you must follow (or already be a follower!) of both accounts and have retweeted the competition tweet.

One entry per Twitter user.

One winner will be chosen at random. The prize: one skein of yarn, the crochet pattern and one copy of the audiobook (on CD).

Giveaway is open internationally and closes at 9pm (GMT) on Friday 2oth May 2016.

I’ve been trying to support my eldest with her first set of ‘big’ exams. In Scotland, these are called National 5s and they are roughly equivalent to GCSEs.

In truth, there hasn’t been much to do in practical terms (my daughter is one of the most hard-working and organised people I have ever met), but the subject has loomed large over the household and, being a soggy over-emotional kind of parent, I empathise with her deeply and will be very happy when they are over!

Land And Sea by Iona Mackenzie Laycock

I’ve also been trying to get a better work-life balance (ha!) and took a day off last week for a rare day out with my lovely mum.

We both love craft and have dabbled in a variety of different projects and materials over the years. We went to the Knitting and Stitching show in Edinburgh and wandered around in a happy daze, discovering interesting new things and stroking the beautiful yarn, threads and materials on offer.

We also took a workshop with textile artist Iona Mackenzie Laycock, which was brilliant. Iona showed us a technique involving a hot iron and pearlescent acrylic ink to make a ‘layered landscape’ picture. Iona was really nice and it was lots of fun to be in a real-life class (I do most of my learning online these days).

It also reminded me how important it is for me to do other creative things which are just for fun.

Speaking of fun, I finally sent the first draft of the new book to my agent, and have spent the last week happily writing on an old project. It’s a slightly different style and genre to my other stuff and feels like a wee holiday!

I also finished episode #15 of The Worried Writer. If you haven’t listened yet, all the shownotes and episodes can be found at worriedwriter.com or you can subscribe via iTunes or Stitcher.

I’ve been feeling very overwhelmed and feeble this week, so this Friday Five is all about trying to combat that.

1. New knitting project. Knitting is definitely good for stress-relief and the repetitive action helps me to think through story ideas, too.

This owl pattern and yarn combination is super-cute, but the yarn itself is making me cross-eyed. I’m getting used to it, though, and the pattern is nice and simple, which is what I need at the moment!

2. I’ve been giving myself plenty of reading time (as I know that will help me to ‘refill the creative well’, as well as being an enjoyable escape from my own head) and I really enjoyed The Lie by C.L. Taylor and Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig.

3. Easing out the post-deadline kinks with some yoga. I’ve been saying ‘I must do some yoga, it’ll do me good’ for so long, that I (finally) got sick of myself and actually did some. Hurrah. I’ve been following the 30 Days of Yoga on the ‘Yoga With Adriene’ channel on YouTube and I really like her down-to-earth, approach.

First off, BBBITWIO* has given me an iMac (his ‘old’ one!) and I’m a wee tiny bit excited. Meep!

Quite apart from the fact that my PC had become a bit temperamental (the screen flickered with irritating regularity and it took FOREVER to start up/shut down), I’m also now able to use the Mac-only collaging/brain-storming software of my dreams… Curio.

Plus, my lovely Mum and Dad gave me a colour printer to replace my old black-and-white, so I’ll be able to print out pictures for my paper-and-glue book collages (as well as other crafty projects) – yay!

In other news, I’ve** moved this website over from wordpress.com (free blogging platform) to wordpress.org (self-hosted). Hopefully, you won’t see any difference or have problems with the new site, but please shout if I’ve inadvertently broken anything.

Also, if you were kind enough to follow my blog using the RSS button, you may find that you have to re-subscribe to continue getting the posts by email. Sorry!

While I’m on the subject of subscribing to things… I now have a mailing list. If you would like to receive an (occasional) newsletter from me with book news and recommendations, exclusive content and giveaways, please consider signing up here.

I promise not to share your details or clutter up your inbox with too many emails.

Thank you!

* Best Big Brother In The World: It’s Official

** My use of ‘I’ in this paragraph is somewhat misleading… Please replace with the more accurate ‘my wonderful husband’.

A couple of weeks ago I had a lovely day in Edinburgh with my Mum. We saw Marcus Brigstocke at the Fringe and Neil Gaiman at the Book Festival, and had a wander around the West End Craft Fair.

This brilliant craft market runs every August and is well worth a visit. Mum and I have been many times before so there were plenty of our old favourites to see plus, as always, something new to fall in love with. This year, my heart was swayed by Linda Lovatt’s Beastie Brooches.

Linda mixes copper (with a verdigris finish) with broken china, buttons and beads to create quirky pieces like this ‘Love Birds on a Cup Handle‘.